In recent years, mobile wireless communications have become increasingly popular. Initial implementations of mobile wireless communications, for example in the form of cellular telephone networks, supported circuit switched voice communication services. The carriers developed short message service (SMS) technology to provide text and/or e-mail communications via the wireless communication networks.
The SMS service, for example, provides text messages for display on the mobile devices. In a typical implementation, SMS communications to/from a mobile station (such as a cellular telephone, or a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or similar device) use a signaling channel over the airlink and use out-of-band signaling resources of the mobile phone network for transport to/from a server platform referred to as an MC (Message Center), also known as an SMSC (Short Message Service Center). The MC, for example, receives packet communications containing text messages and forwards the messages via the signaling resources and the signaling channels to the appropriate mobile stations. The MC will also receive similar messages from the mobile devices and forward them to servers or terminal devices accessible via an Internet Protocol (IP) packet data network. For example, the MC may forward an SMS message to an External Short Messaging Entity (ESME), also known as a Value Added Service (VAS) provider. The MC may also supply SMS message content to a mobile station from an ESME.
At present, a mobile station user may send an SMS message request to an External Short Messaging Entity (ESME) requesting a response such as, for example, a “joke of the day,” or basketball scores, or a stock price quote. As another example, the message may be a vote for a candidate in a television program. “Short codes” (also known as “campaigns”) may be used to identify specific applications and request specific services. Short codes are typically 3 to 6 digits long. A single ESME may have multiple simultaneous short codes for different services, such as basketball scores and baseball scores. For example, a user may send an SMS message request to a short code such as “12345.” The “upstream” message may be a blank SMS message (containing no information in the body of the message). This SMS message request includes a header with information indicating “from” the particular mobile station, and indicating “to” the short code. The wireless communications network forwards the SMS message request to the appropriate ESME. The ESME may respond with an appropriate SMS message response containing, for example, the desired joke or other information, or the ESME may record a vote. This SMS message response includes a header with information indicating “from” the short code, and indicating “to” the mobile station. The ESME may charge for this value added service. Services which require additional payments (either per month, or per use) are typically known as premium services.
Both the request and the response travel through a Short Message Peer-to-Peer (SMPP) gateway. Current SMPP parameters (in version 3.4 of SMPP protocols) facilitate message handling, but do not consider or rate the message content. In other words, there is no parameter in the SMPP protocols that is presently designated for evaluating or rating the contents of the message.
Recently, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has adopted rules requiring all television sets with picture screens 33 centimeters (13 inches) or larger to be equipped with features to block the display of television programming based upon its rating. This technology is known as the “V-Chip.” The V-Chip reads information (a content rating) encoded in the rated program and blocks programs from the set based upon the rating (a subscriber rating) selected by the parent. This V-Chip system requires special hardware in the television, and is limited to televisions. There is a possibility that in the near future the FCC may require wireless communication networks to provide some similar type of ratings and blocking options for various mobile services including SMS premium services. Further, there may be customer demand for content management options for SMS premium services.
Also recently, some wireless communication networks may attempt to limit access by challenging the user, for example by asking the user how old the user is. These conventional approaches have severe limitations: the V-Chip requires extra hardware and is limited to television, and challenging a user is limited by the honesty of the user.
Actually searching the body of the message for inappropriate words (an “intelligent” filter) is not desirable due to the huge volume of messages and the need to process the messages very quickly. Further, “intelligent” filters tend to yield many false positives (for example, the word “breast” in an article about breast cancer may cause the filter to block the message) and tend to yield many false negatives (for example, a very sexual joke may consist solely of words that are harmless individually, and may be approved by the filter). Thus, it is very difficult to individually evaluate the content of individual messages.
Hence, as a result of the limitations of existing hardware and existing methods, a need exits for a method to manage the contents of SMS messages without requiring additional hardware in the mobile station. Specifically, a need exists for a method that has one or more of the following features: a) does not require additional hardware in the mobile station, b) uses existing wireless communication network hardware, c) does not substantially delay the flow of SMS messages, d) facilitates accounting of which messages are blocked and which messages are approved, e) associates a content rating with a short code, f) compares the content rating to a subscriber rating and blocks or approves an SMS message based upon the comparison, and g) does not require the wireless communications network to analyze (word search) the body of each message.